


What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate

by calathea



Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 02:01:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calathea/pseuds/calathea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie was making weird snorting, choking noises when Don walked into the house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate

Charlie was making weird snorting, choking noises when Don walked into the house.

"OK, what's so funny?" Don finally asked, as Charlie didn't seem to be about to stop and explain. He looked over Charlie's shoulder at the scribbled page his brother was working on, but it was just the usual mess of numbers and Greek letters.

"Oh, I was writing this equation, and I suddenly remembered something that happened a couple of years back. Larry and I were in the faculty lounge, and Larry was telling me about this student," and here Charlie had to break off to gasp out a laugh, "who was working on the steps outside his office with a study group. Larry can hear them enough to know they're doing Green's functions, and he suddenly hears this kid yell 'It's e to the minus one!'"

Just uttering this phrase was apparently too much for Charlie, and he started to laugh again, dropping his pen. "And then, and then," he sputtered, finally, barely forcing his words out between snorts of laughter, "Larry's telling me this, and we're laughing, and this guy, you don't know him, Professor Jacobson, he really doesn't like me, he stands up and starts to walk out the room, but before he goes he turns around and says that theoretically there _are_ circumstances in which it could have been e to the minus one."

Charlie broke down altogether at this point, giving himself over to mirth, and Don found himself grinning widely. He couldn't not laugh with his brother, even though the story made no sense, even though the punchline wasn't even a punchline, by any normal person's standards. After a minute or so, Charlie calmed down and rubbed his hands over his face. His breath still hitched a little, and he grinned at Don, "Well, I guess you had to be there, huh?" he said.

"Yeah, I guess you did, Charlie," Don replied, raising his eyebrows to show his doubt. Charlie just raised his eyebrows back, and settled back into his seat. Don wandered over to the sofa and dropped onto the cushions, reaching for the remote. When he glanced over at Charlie, he was bent over his notebook, his face a mask of concentration.

* * * * * 

Don had ducked into a cubicle in the men's room after one of Charlie's briefings when he overheard two of his agents discussing his brother.

"Do you understand a word that math guy says?" one of the men asked, as water ran in the sinks.

"Nope." The second man sounded unconcerned. "I just tune out until Eppes yells at him to get on with it."

They both laughed, not unkindly, as they moved away towards the door. Don stayed where he was a few moments longer, trying not to put names to the voices he had heard.

When Don finally emerged, he found Charlie standing on a chair in the conference room, trying to fit some more equations in a corner of the whiteboard. "What are you...?" Don began. Startled, Charlie spun around on the seat, started to lose his balance and flailed wildly with his arms. Don grabbed at his brother to steady him.

"Charlie!" Don yanked him down off the chair. "Don't do that."

Charlie looked hurt. "I just... I had a thought, and I ran out of room on here, and I couldn't find the other pen for the perspex board."

"Then why didn't you..." Don said, exasperated.

"No, OK, but look, I thought of something." Charlie started to point at parts of his new equation. "If you just introduce this variable, it changes the whole_ shape_ of the thing, can you see?"

Don looked at the equation. Charlie carried on talking, mathematical terms pouring out of his mouth. "Enough, Charlie. What does it mean?"

Just for a moment, he saw some unreadable expression flash across Charlie's face. "That you need to expand the search area to the south."

"How far south?" Don asked, pulling out his cellphone, and starting to talk into it as Charlie outlined the new area on the city map.

* * * * * 

The first time Don saw Charlie and Larry working together was when Charlie was almost sixteen. Don was home from school for a break, and Charlie had by that time moved home to start graduate work at Cal Sci. He found the two of them in the garage, lounging in front of one of Charlie's many blackboards, which were covered in the usual incomprehensible squiggles. He paused by the door to listen to them; to Charlie's excited voice and Larry's more measured interruptions.

"Charlie," he said, breaking into Larry's laughing exclamation about something to do with strings.

Charlie looked over at the door, and smiled widely. "Don! Hi!"

"Mom wants you," Don said.

"Oh." Charlie turned to Larry for a moment. "You don't mind? I won't be too long."

"No, no, go ahead." Larry waved vaguely. "I'll stay here and contemplate the algorithm."

"Yeah, OK." Charlie wandered away, brushing at his jeans with chalk-covered hands, leaving streaks of white over his thighs.

"She'll dust him off when he goes in the house." Don predicted, absently.

Larry smiled. "Yes, I've seen your mother chase him around the house to wipe him clean." He tapped his fingers together. "You know, I find it strangely comforting that despite everything he is capable of, he still has a normal teenager's affinity for mess."

Don took a seat opposite Larry. "How much is he capable of?"

Larry seemed taken aback. "How much....? I don't know, exactly. I know he's the most promising mathematician I've ever had the pleasure of working with. I know he has immense potential. But..." Larry paused, lost in thought.

"But?" Don prompted.

Larry steepled his fingers and looked down at them steadily. "I don't mind admitting that there are days when the ideas he wants to discuss with me take me in directions I am not sure I would ever have gone without him. That being the case, I'm not sure I know how to measure Charles' capabilities. If I try to define him in terms of what I am capable of knowing, I would limit him by that definition."

"You mean Charlie is so smart that you don't even know how smart he is?"

Larry looked over at Don. "Yes. Essentially."

Don stood up and went over to the door of the garage. Through the kitchen window, he could see Charlie talking to their mother. Or, his mother was talking, and Charlie was listening with a sheepish expression on his face.

"I do know how much he admires you." Larry's voice was quiet. "He keeps track of all your games, works up your stats every time you play, speculates on your training and about the scouts who might have seen you. When you call him, I hear about all the things you said, and all the things you've done, for a week afterwards."

Don shrugged and looked back over his shoulder at Larry. "Must be boring for you."

"No." Larry drew out the word thoughtfully. "Not boring. Charles always has a unique viewpoint on things. Besides..."

Don turned around and leaned on the doorway. "Besides what?"

"Well, look at this way." Larry leaned forward and looked intently at Don. "You're twenty, I think." Don nodded. "By the time he is your age, Charles will very likely have finished his PhD, and be working on a variety of post-doctoral research. He will be teaching other people. He will be expected to travel all over the country, and the world, to present papers and attend seminars and conferences."

"So?" Don asked, hating the sullen tone of his voice. "Sounds great."

"Well, it will be, I'm sure, but there's a price to be paid. Our profession is often lonely, and Charles is entering it younger than most. There will be no senior prom at high school for Charles, no first dorm room at university, no choices, the way you had choices."

Larry paused, and sighed. "Charles has numbers, but the numbers have Charles, too, you see."

Don looked at Larry, normally so vague and rambling, still intent on Don's face. He opened to his mouth to speak, but there was a clattering noise at the door, and when he turned, Charlie came in, tripping over his shoelaces, and already gesticulating at Larry and trying to explain something in half-articulated sentences. Larry steered him towards a black board, and soon the two of them were gone, away somewhere where Don could not follow. He didn't look for a name for the tightness in the base of his neck.


End file.
